New Samsung Galaxy S II

Little did I expect the Samsung pda phone packing so much and giving the Apple iPhone 4 a run for its money. Meet the new and soon to arrive Samsung Galaxy S II.

The anticipated arrival is anytime soon. May is as good a month to welcome a top of the line PDA phone.

iPhone Lookalike
A casual glance at the Galaxy S II makes you wonder how the iPhone grew in size. The frameless round edged profile gives Galaxy S II a similar appearance as the iPhone, at least its front profile.

But that’s where the similarity ends. This nifty baby is 0.2mm thinner than the fabulous SE Xperia Arc. And a whole lot more inside.

Samsung has been using AMOLED screens in its high end phones to set them apart from other manufacturers. This is the first time such screens are used in the Android phones. It won’t be long that the Galaxy Tab will spot the screen too.

Battery Life
It is incredible that Samsung is able to pack a hefty 1650mAH battery in that ever slim body. This is truly an amazing engineering feat.

1080p@30fps Video
Using an 8M rear camera, the Galaxy S II can take exceptional photo as well as HD video. Instead of spotting a mini HDMI like the Xperia Arc, Galaxy S II has chosen the new Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL).

The MHL Specification was developed by Nokia Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Silicon Image, Inc., Sony Corporation, and Toshiba Corporation as a standard for mobile wired connectivity, to enable the development of standard-compliant mobile and display products across a broad connectivity ecosystem.

This standard will soon be found on all devices that require HD output. Perhaps the iPhone will catch up on this one soon enough in the next iPhone edition.

Conclusion
The Galaxy S II is certainly a new generation from its Galaxy S predecessor. It comes with 16GB/32GB memory and a 1GB internal RAM.

There in the palm of your hand is a turbo charged netbook equivalent powered PDA phone with no downside really.

The price should be around RM2,100 and can be even lower depending on how aggressive Samsung is going to compete with this beauty of a baby!

Update: The retail price is RM2,099 and is now available from all Samsung mobile outlets. Word has it that the first batch had sold out.